Tag Archives: msn uk

#newsrw: Follow the tweets at news:rewired

This liveblog will pick up the tweets tagged #newsrw at Friday’s news:rewired event. Follow here, or via news:rewired.com.

#followjourn: @thisismattball/editor-in-chief

#followjourn: Matt Ball

Who? Editor-in-chief of MSN UK.

Where? Ball oversees all that goes on over at MSN UK. He is a self-confessed fan of Wycombe Wanderers and ballroom dancing. He writes MSN’s Strictly Come Dancing blog.

Contact? @thisismattball

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

MSN UK’s new homepage: the tour

MSN UK has launched its new UK homepage, re-designed, changed functionality and with social media plug-ins.

  • Content manager Steven Wilson-Beales has some before and after screenshots at this link.

MSN executive producer Peter Bale, will be speaking at Journalism.co.uk’s forthcoming news:rewired conference on 25 June 2010, hosted by MSN UK. A few remaining tickets are  available at this link.

Paywall and subscription models: a study of 30+ organisations

Alastair Bruce (@ajbruce), content manager for MSN UK, has studied over 30 organisations to produce this detailed presentation on pay wall and subscription models. He examines bundling, micropayments, metered systems, freemium and 100 per cent subscription models, across consumer/specialist titles and national/local newspapers. Who is doing what, and what comes next?

How publishers are charging for online content or consumption and implementing paywalls and subscription services

#aop3c: Think duration, not page views for online video says MSN’s Peter Bale

In a session discussing the future of video at the the AOP Publishing Summit 2009 (also featuring BBC Worldwide, ITN On, CBS Interactive, InSkin Media) Peter Bale, executive producer for Microsoft UK said that in the next 18 months to two years we will see a shift in the way video is measured for advertising purposes.

Duration spent watching, or ‘dwell-time’ will become a much more important measure than page views, and the format of advertising itself will change – with more connection between television advertisements and online campaigns, Bale predicted.

Listen to Bale talking to Journalism.co.uk here:

“Page views at the moment are used – rightly or wrongly – as a proxy for ad impression delivery,” said Bale.

“For example, we deliver something like 10 billion page views on MSN in UK, a couple of years ago it was only five billion – and there is a vague approximation between that and ad impression – it’s become a necessary currency for us for advertisers and it does give you a sense of scale, but what it doesn’t give you is a good measure of engagement.

“It is not information that works tremendously well with a video intense site or this environment where people are trying to make more money off the web.

“Average revenue per user and dwell time are going to become much more important. It’s about time online, as opposed to pages moved through and consumed.”

It will require new advertising formats, he said. “It will become more engaging, it is going to become more easy to click on an ad in a video environment.”

In addition, television advertising will become more interactive and connected to the online offering:

“I despair at the moment at the lack of real connection to a major brand’s web campaign – it rarely gets promoted effectively on television,” said Bale. “It’s as though people are working in two completely different environments.”

MSN UK signs up with PressDisplay to add newspaper e-editions to site

MSN UK will now feature its own version of PressDisplay.com, which provides an archive of digital editions of newspapers and magazines, according to a press release from earlier in the week.

PressDisplay, which is owned by newspaper distribution firm NewspaperDirect, features e-editions of titles including the Times, Guardian, Washington Post and the Australian.

MSN PressDisplayThe new feature on the web portal will be branded as MSN PressDisplay and will give users free access to the front page and two stories from any publication on the day of print. To access more stories and back issues, users will be required to register with PressDisplay and offered subscription offers, starting at 79p to buy a credit to view another article.

The service offers different packages for personal and corporate use including greater access to archived editions, for example, the £79.95 ‘Corporate Unlimited’ lets subscribers go back up to 60 days in the archive.

Titles can be searched by country, language or browsed alphabetically, and search preferences can be saved by individual users.

The service is compatible with iPhones, Blackberry and eReaders, the release said and also offers interactive features – such as the ability to comment on articles and share them via social networks or email.

“Together we have been able to deliver innovative features which give consumers access to a huge number of publications on the great NewspaperDirect interface. At a time when the survival of newspapers is being questioned we see this as a great outlet for newspaper content,” said Peter Bale, MSN executive producer, in the release.

MSN UK also recently launched its local news and information site MSN Local.